Traversing through congested areas, Mumbai Metro Line 3 is expected to be the next lifeline for the city. Daily ridership is expected to be 17 lakh passengers per day by 2031. And when commissioned in 2021, almost 4.5 lakh vehicle trips will be reduced, resulting in reduction in fuel consumption by 2.5 lakh litre per day. This will improve the city’s carbon footprint as well. Further, this corridor will connect the city’s six business and employment centres that are unconnected by suburban trains today. Another important feature is the connectivity to both domestic and international airports, existing suburban rail, Metro Line 1, Metro Line 2 and the Monorail. So, there will be interchanges at appropriate stations, resulting in better connectivity for commuters.

“Civil construction has already begun and we have seven packages for civil work, each consisting of a twin tunnel of 5 km and three to five underground stations,” says Ashwini Bhide, Managing Director, Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation. She confirms that orders for tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) have been placed – there is an expected requirement of about 17 TBMs. “These will start coming in from July 2017 onwards.”

As far as systems are concerned, the tendering process is in progress. “We have two tenders for electric supply and power supply and substations as well as overhead equipment (OHE),” updates Bhide. “Here, the pre-qualification (PQ) has already been done, and we have floated our RFP for that. Also, in the case of lifts and escalators, PQ RFP is in progress. For signalling and telecommunication, tunnel ventilation system and environmental control systems, the PQ is done and RFP is in process. For the rolling stock and automatic fare collection, the PQ process is still on.”

Almost all approvals, including traffic clearances, are in place and 90 per cent of required CRZ clearances are in. In terms of tree-cutting clearances, the authorities have cleared almost all proposals except for one station, which is in process. Finally, for two stations – part of which falls in the mangrove area – forest clearance is in the final stage of approval and is expected soon.

The original DPR cost is about Rs 23,167 crore. But the civil construction – contracts for which have already been awarded and work started – is around Rs 18,000 crore. Needless to say, the procurement opportunities will be huge. “Heavy-duty crane will be required; sourcing for rolling stock would be big as well as the tunnel ventilation system, signalling and telecommunication, automatic fair collection machines, etc,” says Bhide. “For the tunnelling construction itself, the contractors will require waterproofing materials and other chemicals as well as ancillary parts for tunnelling activity, and more.”